The Cookie Cutter
by SkitteryIdol
Summary: After going on an incredible adventure with Crutchy, David realizes that no man is ever rid of the boy inside of him. Rated for future events.
1. Morning

It was the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a newsie was stirring, not even a – cowboy.

Jack had been kindly invited by Sarah Jacobs to spend the week of Christmas at her house just 3 days earlier, and now he was sound asleep in the guest room, dreaming of Santa Fe. This was of course, because he had graciously accepted her offer.

Meanwhile, Les was dreaming of the day when he would leave Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs' house and be able to live on his own. Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs were dreaming of the day when Sarah would leave their house and probably move in with some high-class guy she fell madly in love with when they met in Central Park, and Sarah was dreaming of Jack. She was actually dreaming of more than that, but we don't have to get into the details.

But Davey, Davey was different. He slept a peaceful, dreamless sleep, waiting patiently but eagerly for Christmas to arrive the next day.

* * *

"Hurry up Davey! Hurry up! You gotta come see what Santa brought us!"

"Ehh… get off of me Les!" David tried to push his younger brother off his bed and managed to keep him away long enough to rub the sleep from his eyes. He lazily sat up and glanced at the clock on his night table. "It's 6 in the morning Les!" he exclaimed. "Why didn't you let me sleep in!"

"Because it's Christmas! Duh!"

David began to lie back down on his old mattress. He obviously had no intention of staying awake. "You can come wake me up again when you turn twenty-three."

"Aw come on! Get up you lazy bum!"

"Les it's not nice to call people bums," David said, half asleep. "But seriously, wake me up in about three hours."

"Fine. Be that way." But Les refused to entertain the notion. He sat down on the floor of his brother's room and quietly played with a deck of cards while waiting for him to fall back asleep. Once he could clearly hear steady breathing with a few snorts mixed in, he stood up and carefully picked up Davey's clock. He delicately turned the knob on the back until the big hand was turned to nine and the little hand to twelve. Then he placed the clock back on the night table, and tip-toed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

After spending about six seconds in the hallway tapping his foot and occasionally looking at an imaginary watch on his wrist, Les barged back into his brother's room, and jumped on his bed. "Ok Davey! It's three hours later! Will you get up now? Please? PLEASE!"

Davey moaned as he once again turned to his clock. "Alright. Nine o'clock." He stretched his arms out wide and gave a huge yawn. "See Les? I'm ready to get up now. Just a little more sleep was all it took." Les chuckled quietly as he practically dragged Davey into the hall and down the stairs.

* * *

The Jacobs' tall evergreen tree stood proudly in the corner of their living room, sparkling with bright colorful lights and shining ornaments. A white fleece cloth surrounded the trunk of the tree to catch the needles that fell off of it each day. But the most amazing sight was the beautiful gifts laid under the wide branches of the tree.

In his heart, Davey glowed with joy when he saw all the colorful packages. Some had stripes, some had stars, and some had snowmen! A few also had elegant shining ribbon wrapped around them. But since he wanted to sound mature, David said very sarcastically to his brother, "That's great Les, just great. But refresh my memory. What did you drag me down here for?"

"Aw, you're such a party pooper Davey," Les retorted. "Come on! Let's go wake up the others!"

**AN: OK, this is going to be my second fan-fiction total, and my first one that has chapters. In case your wondering, David and Les aren't talking with an accent because – well – they don't really talk with an accent. If it was Jack, or pretty much anyone else, they most definitely would have an accent. And yes, I know it's short, but I'm doing the best I can to make them longer! Please R&R!**


	2. Presents

"This is really great, kids!"

"Yeah, it's wonderful!"

The Jacobs family and Jack were sitting in the living room, the parents relaxing on the couch. Mrs. Jacobs was sipping some tea, and her husband was drinking his coffee. Everyone felt cozy and safe around the holidays. The parents had just finished opening a present from their children. David, Sarah, and Les had put their money together and got their parents a special picture frame that now held a family photo.

"My turn!" Les cried. He grabbed an oddly-shaped package and quickly skimmed the card. "It's from Santa!" he said happily. He began to rip off the wrapping paper as if his life depended on it.

"Take it easy Les! There's no rush," Sarah said.

"Wow! A toy dinosaur! I can't wait to show all the newsies!" He looked up at the ceiling and held the dinosaur up high. "Thank you Santa!" he said as if St. Nick were hovering above his head.

"Can I go next?" asked Sarah.

"Sure honey," said her mom.

Sarah picked out a medium-sized box with a single red ribbon tied around it. She slid off the ribbon and removed the cover from the box. There was a little card inside that read: _For my dearest daughter Sarah_. She smiled at her mother.

"What could this be?" she asked, mostly to herself. "Oh." She had unfolded the tissue paper. "Um – wow."

She held up a pair of pink lacy panties.

"Do you like them?" her mother questioned.

"Erm… Yeah, they're great."

"Yeah! They're great!" Jack exclaimed.

"Jack!" Sarah scolded. "Not now!"

"What do you mean, 'not now'? What's not now?" Les asked curiously.

"So _anyway…_" David was obviously trying to change the subject. "Jack, do you want to open something?"

"Well I - "

"No? Good. Then I'll go next." David chose a red package that was hidden among all of the other gifts. After carefully tearing away a bit of the wrapping paper, he was unsure of what it was. Becoming impatient, he quickly tore off the rest and threw it behind him - all to reveal a wooden figure, about the height of a regular house cat.

The character was wearing brown boots, gray trousers, a pale raggedy shirt with a black sweater vest and a traditional newsboy's cap. The figure looked happy, with a wide smile painted on his face, eyes sparkling, and dark curly hair peeking out from beneath his cap. There was also one feature that was rather odd. Both of the feet were – hollow.

David thought it looked pretty interesting, but still didn't really understand what it was, so he asked. "Looks cool but um – what is it?"

His mother looked slightly hurt. "It's a cookie cutter!"

Davey's face showed a lot of surprise when she said that, but he actually did love to bake. He had helped his mother make four batches of lemon meringue cookies when he was four, and she gave him his very own kid's cookbook when he was seven. By the age of nine, he could make a picture-perfect crème brule. But eventually he grew older, and just as any other boy would have, he began to see cooking as a girly hobby, and left it in the past.

"Wow, I never would've guessed," he replied. "Thank you mom!"

His mother's face lit up. "I'm so glad you like it."

"Yeah, I do. It looks really unique," David commented. "As a matter o' fact, I'm not really sure I know how to use it…"

"Yeah, how the hell do you use that thing?" Jack agreed.

"Jack," Mr. Jacobs began. "There's a youngster in our midst. Please try to watch your language."

"No, it's okay Dad. I hear him talk like that all the time," Les put in.

Mr. Jacobs glared at Jack with a _You better stop talking trash around my son_ look.

"Well, since the feet are hollow," David's mother started to answer her son's question. "All you have to do is press down the feet on the dough like you would with a regular cookie cutter."

"Oh, I get it. So the edges of the boots cut the dough," Sarah concluded.

"Yes, and after you clean it, it also makes a nice decoration, if you just place it in a room," Mrs. Jacobs added.

"So it makes, er, footprint-shaped cookies?" David asked.

He was honestly a bit weirded out by how his gift was supposed to be used. Strange questions ran through his mind. _A cookie cutter? That looks like a newsie? And makes footprint-shaped cookies? _But then he remembered that it was the thought that counts, so he tried to push his concerns to the back of his mind.

"Yes," his mother answered.

"Ahh… that's pretty clever. I'll be sure to put it to good use."

"So now that that's over with, do I get ta open a gift now?" Jack asked.

"Go ahead Jack," Sarah said.

Jack closed his eyes and ran his hand over the gifts still left under the tree. He grasped one with blue wrapping paper that had a bow stuck on top.

"Hmm… I wonder who this is from…" he pondered as he opened the card. "Oh! It's from Sarah!" He glanced at his girlfriend sitting next to him with a bit of a smirk. Jack and Sarah's relationship had become known to Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs only a couple days after the strike had ended. They had found it hard to keep it discreet.

When Jack had torn off all the wrapping paper, a white box was revealed. "Wow! A box! Gee thanks Sarah!" he said with mock surprise.

"No, silly!" Sarah replied, playfully hitting him on the arm. "There's something inside the box!"

"Jeez, that's pretty special," Jack joked. "Ya guys hea what she said? There's something _inside _ the box."

David was getting impatient. "Jack stop flirting and open the God-damn box," he said. Les giggled a little from hearing what he would call a 'naughty word'.

Jack stared at David for a moment, and then turned his focus back to the present. He removed the cover of the box and was looking at a 100 silk shirt (with three buttons undone) from Tommy Bahama. "Oh, wow," he said with astonishment.

"Well? Do you love it? Or do you love it?" Sarah questioned.

"O' course I love it!" Jack turned to Sarah and gave her a light kiss on the cheek.

"Eww! Jack kissed Sarah!" Les exclaimed.

"Alright kids, that's enough." Mrs. Jacobs said. "You all go to your rooms now and change out of your pajamas. Then we'll head off to church."

The kids whined as they headed to their bedrooms. None of them wanted to go to church, but everyone except Jack remembered that their parents controlled their allowance, so they unwillingly obeyed.

**AN: So there's chapter two. It seems kinda weird that the second chapter is so much longer than the first, but I got a little carried away explaining the opening of the presents. Hope you don't mind. I also want to know what you think of David's gift, because even I know that it's pretty kooky. I would have made it a normal cookie cutter, but it needed to be that way so I could continue the plotline… muahaha… So anyway, R&R! **


	3. Broken

Jack reached up and opened the Jacobs' kitchen cabinet. He peered into it, trying to decide what to eat. He soon chose a loaf of bread from the cabinet's bottom shelf. He undid the twisty tie and opened the plastic bag. After putting two slices of bread onto a napkin, he headed to the refrigerator to get the butter. Suddenly, he paused mid-stride, and turned to a corner cabinet that Mrs. Jacobs kept all of her baking tools in. Curiosity ran through Jack's veins.

Jack opened the cabinet, and quickly spotted David's new cookie cutter standing proudly on the top shelf. He carefully took it down, and brought it to the counter where he was working. Examining the bottom of the feet, he concluded that the indentations weren't very sharp, and figured he'd have to press down pretty hard to get a fine shape out of the bread he was about to cut.

Jack raised the cookie cutter above one of the bread slices, and brought it down with a BANG on the counter top. He smiled when he saw that the bread now had a distinct footprint-shaped cut in it. But he frowned when he saw that the right leg of the cookie cutter had a distinct lightning bolt crack in it, and was only held together by a thin bit of wood.

"Aw, crap. Davey's gonna kill me."

* * *

"Man! I can't believe you Jack!"

"Relax! It was an accident!"

"Doesn't matter if it was an accident! You should have asked me before you decided to go chopping up a slice of bread with my new Christmas present!"

"Look, I'm really sorry! I didn't know you cared about it that much."

"Well, now you do."

David stomped out of the room, newly broken figure in hand. He was furious. How could Jack be so inconsiderate? But to be honest, he was actually very surprised at himself. Even he didn't realize how much he liked the thing. All and all, it was just a flimsy piece of wood. Entertainment fit for a child, and nothing to go so ballistic over. But still, Jack should've asked.

Davey swiftly headed up the stairs and to his room. He collapsed on his bed, leaving the cookie cutter on his nightstand.

He knew he shouldn't be all that frustrated about something like this. It was nothing to be so moody about. Being dumped by your girlfriend is something to be moody about. Getting fired is something to be moody about. Losing front-row tickets to a live performance of _RENT_ is something to be moody about. Your friend accidentally making a crack in your wooden cookie cutter is NOT something to be moody about.

David just wanted to relax now. He didn't feel like thinking about the dumb cookie cutter. But as hard as he tried to let sleep overcome him, he couldn't ignore his broken possession laying on the nightstand beside him.

_No, you don't have to think about that now. Don't let him mock you. Just try to clear your mind for a quick nap._

He could feel the painted eyes of the cookie cutter keeping him awake.

"Fine! I'll fix you now God dammit!" David said as if the thing could hear him.

David carefully applied the glue to the broken point of the leg. He joined the two separated parts and held them together for about a minute. Then he set the figure down on his work table (the small desk in his room) and waited for the leg to fall apart again. He knew it would happen. He just knew it. But it didn't. The leg stayed together and David was quite happy with his handy-work.

Just for kicks, he neatly wrapped a white cloth around the newly glued point on the leg, and attached a miniature crutch underneath the right arm. He had found the crutch in one of Sarah's old dollhouses. It had been lying next to Doctor Barbie. He never really understood why she kept that thing…

By the time he was finished fixing the cookie cutter, it was 8:30 at night. David went downstairs to grab a quick snack from the kitchen, and after watching a little TV, he headed back to his room for a good night's sleep.

"What a day."

**AN: Chapter 3. There it is. I was having a bit of a writer's block before I started this, couldn't decide what order to put the… events in. But I've got it all figured out now, no worries! Pretty short chapter, but maybe some of you can see where I'm going with this now… kind of a newsies version of – well, I don't want to give it away. I wasn't sure what you professional critics would think of this chapter, so pretty please with a watermelon on top, R&R!**


End file.
